Agenda 09-03-19 Item 8-c - Property Tax Releases Refunds

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1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: September 3, 2019 Action Agenda Item No. 8-c SUBJECT: Property Tax Releases/Refunds DEPARTMENT: Tax Administration ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Resolution Nancy T. Freeman, Interim Tax Releases/Refunds Data Spreadsheet Administrator, (919) 245-2735 PURPOSE: To consider adoption of a resolution to release property tax values for forty-nine (49) taxpayers with a total of seventy-five (75) bills that will result in a reduction of revenue. BACKGROUND: The Tax Administration Office has received nine taxpayer requests for release or refund of property taxes. North Carolina General Statute 105-381(b), "Action of Governing Body" provides that "upon receiving a taxpayer's written statement of defense and request for release or refund, the governing body of the Taxing Unit shall within 90 days after receipt of such a request determine whether the taxpayer has a valid defense to the tax imposed or any part thereof and shall either release or refund that portion of the amount that is determined to be in excess of the correct liability or notify the taxpayer in writing that no release or refund will be made". North Carolina law allows the Board to approve property tax refunds for the current and four previous fiscal years. FINANCIAL IMPACT: Approval of this change will result in a net reduction in revenue of $183,739.51 to the County, municipalities, and special districts. The Tax Assessor recognized that refunds could impact the budget and accounted for these in the annual budget projections. In addition, thirty-seven (37) of the release requests have the same reason for adjustment and same additional information. There is an asterisk in the additional information column of each. These release requests are due to a software programming error that caused these parcels to be billed in error. The software programming error has now been corrected. These "parent" parcels were closed before January 1, 2019 and split into two or more smaller, "children" parcels. The children parcels were correctly billed for 2019, causing a situation of double billing. The double billing results in unplanned revenue, and the release of these bills will have little bearing on the overall financial impact of this action. The release amount of these 36 bills represents $115,888.63 of the overall $183,739.51 shown on the report.